Wireless Application Protocol

WirelessApplicationProtocol is used to enable communication between a mobile and server for mobile services.

This server can be WebServer, which serves WirelessMarkupLanguage files.

WAP reloaded (version 2 <and beyond>)

Version 2 of WAP was talked about in 2001, however phones with WAP 2.0 support is only becoming common in 2004.

V2 uses XHTML and is marketed as the one with much improved presentation capabilities, include the use of CSS. Some speculate that WAP V3 will have better scripting support. See a 2001 infosheet at http://www.wapforum.org/new/WAP2001Update.ppt

If you follow OnceAndOnlyOnce, and you also serve WebServices with your WebServer, you will try to build a MultiTierArchitecture with PresentationAbstractionControl.

Question for the RecentChangesJunkies - is WAP in or out?

WAP is way, way out. People want to talk, and WAP is a bunch of crap like force-feeding ads to them (Nokia). And if by some cosmic error, there is anything good on WAP then that's a very, very bad thing since WAP is proprietary from end to end. See http://shirky.com/ (look down the page for WAP)

But note that a variant on WML is used by 6 million DTV STBs in the UK, as it's lighweight, copes well with limited bandwidth, and works well when the input device has just number keys and a small set of others (as with, say, as cellphone or a TV remote control unit).

Do the cell phone makers know that? I thought WAP was simply the standard across all of them.

Who do you think came up with WAP? The cell phone makers. Do you seriously think it's an accident that everything on WAP is patented to hell and back by the cell phone makers?

What's in?

The first wireless provider that breaks with the WAP forum and offers straight TCP/IP and HTML.

Before throwing out the baby with the bathwater think about it: WAP, while limited in graphics elegantly solves the problem it is designed for - allow information to be quickly and securely accessed by wireless devices with relatively slow connection speeds (even with gprs, 1xrtt etc) and small screens. Many sites have been formatted using wap and if you just want to find a movie time, sports s ore, weather or traffic report, or news headlines you just want the facts, not loads of graphics wap is ideal. Like a bicycle or skateboard is great for some transport, while car or truck needed for others one is not better than the other because it has more features, just depends what you are trying to do. Even HandHeld s such a palm and pocketpc though they can "see" regular html, take ages to load and can often cut to the chase by using a pda wap browser such as klondike. Yes it should and will evolve not only to html but svg, j2me but lots of info can be had quickly from the road using existing wap pages. When you get back to your hotel fire up the laptop to see dhtml but while waiting at the bank, on the bus/train, restaurant etc and phone/pda are all that is available, wap is great.

Does this sound like WikiSpam to anyone else?

The problem with WAP is it's patented by the cell phone makers and costs thousands of dollars to use. Sure, "it's great" but who the fuck wants to pay 2.50 to check the movie listings?

This thread is full of extra baggage. Let's try to say it like this:

If I wanted to break into embedded, at the GUI level, what library should I learn? The above yacking is interesting, but it does not apply to this question.

If you use a HandHeld and a wireless service (WiFi, GPRS, whatever), you would pay no more to see movie listing using a WAP browser than if you use an HTML browser. Klondike is a free download and WAP is built into the latest versions of PocketIE. WAP is simply much faster than HTML. Even on mobile phones (in north america at least) you don't pay extra to go to WAP pages unless you use special links provided by the carrier, or get the info pushed as SMS. The gprs or 1xrtt subscription is a flat rate. Most carriers allow you to freely "go to (any) url" and you can search mobile.google.com to find other wap pages with the info you need, and bookmark them. You pay only the monthly data connection (not per page) which you do anyway whether you use WAP or not if you use data at all. WAP is simply more efficient for mobile users given current technology.

For a programmer wanting to make applications for mobile users WAP is definitely a starting point, as is J2ME, eVB and/or eVC, BREW, TinySVG which should all be explored too. However WAP is easiest as Klondike also has a free desktop viewer (as does OpenWave? etc), you can use perl,java,gcc, apache and a unix box (or any windows language and iis on windows), half hour learning .wml tags, and you can be on the road to wap development if you already know how to do regular cgi, jsp or asp. Same back end infrastructure as regular web hosting anyone can host .wml pages, not just carriers - they are only the transport layer. You can confiigure your web server to have both html and wml - just detect the users browser type from environment variables and serve up the appropriate page, statically or dynamically. J2ME and BREW apps are actually charged at a premium to download OTA (over the air) and those are not open for users to "go to any site" yet on mobiles as far as I know. You can however download j2me apps using your own connections ie your own WiFi router and a HandHeld. eVB/VC you have to make setup files or copy cabs to the device. Depends what you are trying to do - just as a hobby, or want to market it and if so what kind of customer? For enterprise users they may only want it for range of the office, in which case handhelds and local APs are fine. If they want it on the road or you want to target the mass public then you have to consider what carriers will allow. In some cases you can partner with them or clearinghouses in which case you do want users to pay for downloads so you can share in the revenue. If you want to provide a free service (ie a WikiWap? interface) and minimize cost to yourself and the user then you don't want per-use charges. Most new technologies will be charged a premium and require new devices and special software. WAP, because it is relatively "old" and most phones and HandHelds have the capability is the most universally accessible medium for wireless users. You can also investigate special browsers that allow you to pan and zoom existing html but I have not seen any of these free for more than 30 day trials. Of course there is always VNC but it is too slow over less than WiFi and you have to have a workstation to connect to, not easily shared like a web server.

WAP is simpler for the user also as he/she does not have to download anything, just goes to the server to look at a .wml page same effort as they would to look at a html page just greater reward as you don't wait as long. Actually cheaper in many cases as subscriber bandwidth is usually capped depending on plan you can quickly use it all up downloading the jpegs,frames, scripting and extra data inherent in html. "unlimited" plans are usually the most expensive most users won't have that. WAP allows them to economize on their bandwidth.

Moved from WapSite:

Given the content-rich, form-poor nature of wiki, could it be used to exploit WAP technology? WAP seems to be dead in the water, possibly because there are precious few people who have the skills to generate content without the hype.

Could wiki be WAPs saviour?

CategoryWireless